It\u2019s been a couple of months now since Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups was arrested and charged with profiting from rigged poker games involving several Mafia figures, along with a former NBA player.<\/p>\n
And while the now former coach has since pleaded not guilty to said charges, what he is guilty of is leaving the Blazers team and franchise as a rudderless ship during a time when they could desperately use a captain to navigate the seas that lie ahead.<\/p>\n
Irrelevant would be a harsh but accurate way to describe the team to this point. <\/p>\n
They\u2019re 13-19 overall, are 10th in the Western Conference standings and, if the season ended today, would find themselves in the play-in round and a game or two from Cancun.<\/p>\n
They\u2019d again be an afterthought when it comes to title-contending teams, and with a roster full of \u201cmaybes\u201d and \u201ccould bes,\u201d would feel no closer to the path to relevancy than they\u2019ve been seeking since their surprise appearance in the Western Conference Finals nearly seven years ago.<\/p>\n
Whose fault is that? The front office, I guess to an extent. After all, they\u2019re responsible for the roster that\u2019s been best defined by intrigue and potential opposed to results in recent years. But while Joe Cronin has to shoulder some of the blame, I can\u2019t help but finger Billups as the primary cause to what\u2019s been little to no effect to a team from whom most hoped to see progress.<\/p>\n
These were Billups\u2019 guys.<\/p>\n
This was a group he\u2019d mentored over the last couple of years, and throughout last season\u2019s campaign appeared to be building a core molded by the former gritty champion.<\/p>\n
Billups was supposed to provide stability for that group going forward.<\/p>\n
He stressed defense, teamwork and discipline, in addition to demanding from his players the same respect he afforded the coaches who demanded the same from him.<\/p>\n
But instead of building on the foundation he\u2019d spent the prior four years laying, he demolished it with either a Hall of Fame level of naivete at best, or stupidity at worst.<\/p>\n
Upon signing his two-year contract extension last spring, the rookie head coach beamed with excitement.<\/p>\n
He spoke to the potential he thought the team had and couldn\u2019t wait to help them tap into and ultimately meet it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just so happy with what we\u2019ve done and where I think we can go,\u201d Billups said. \u201cSo much promise here. I\u2019m pumped about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
And fans of the team couldn\u2019t help but be pumped as well. After all, outsiders are really only making marginally educated guesses as to what they see and, as a result, put the bulk of their stock regarding the future in the people on the inside: General Manager Joe Cronin, the players themselves and, of course, the coach paid to make magic happen.<\/p>\n
Well, while Cronin and the players he\u2019s compiled are still here ready to work, O Captain! My Captain seems at present to be closer to assembling license plates than a championship NBA roster, leaving his players and Portland\u2019s team as a headless snake.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not a shot at interim coach Tiago Splitter, for the former NBA player is in the infantile stage of his coaching career but at the same time in the deep end of a pool he should really only be wading into.<\/p>\n
Coaching in the NBA requires a delicate balance of tactical brilliance and babysitting. While Xs and Os are a piece of the puzzle, I\u2019d argue the more important piece is managing egos that have mostly only been stroked.<\/p>\n
The bulk of the league\u2019s talent have always been \u201cthe man,\u201d and from the first time they ran circles around their childhood competition, have been coddled, acquiesced to and only barely coached. They\u2019ve always had the power and even at the game\u2019s highest level hold the bulk of the cards \u2014 and they know it.<\/p>\n
As a result, it\u2019s a rare breed that can foster the relationship and respect necessary to mold a group of NBA professionals into one willing to listen, trust and follow direction. Billups seemed to be on, if not far down that path with this Blazers team, and due to such had people like me \u2014 and, more importantly, the team \u2014 buying what he had spent the better part of four years selling.<\/p>\n
In a league built around superstars, it\u2019s that buy-in that can often lead to success for a team devoid of one.<\/p>\n
Sure, Deni Avdija might be headed toward that stratosphere, but I think we now know Shaedon Sharpe \u2014 while good \u2014 isn\u2019t; Scoot Henderson as the result of repeated injury remains at best an unknown; and the rest of the roster is filled with the \u201cgood but not great\u201d players that litter rosters across the league.<\/p>\n
But while the Blazers lack elite-level talent, Billups believed they had enough and the right combination of such that if they did things the right\/his way, they could do more with less to the tune of a competitive unit.<\/p>\n
Now, however, and in the wake of Billups\u2019 unceremonious departure, there\u2019s no straw stirring the drink in Portland and, as a result, no magic for a roster that needs a little.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not Cronin\u2019s fault, nor the players\u2019. But rather the man both believed in to show them the way, teach them what they didn\u2019t already know, and take them where they and the fans are desperate to go.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Chauncey\u2019s fault \u2014 remind me to thank him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a couple of months now since Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups was arrested and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-378439","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}